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We recently interviewed Abhigyan Jha Founder & CEO of Undercover Productions Ltd (the man behind JayHind TV and hits like Movers and Shakers). We asked him what he thought about the Rs 100 Cr club which Movie makers feel proud of and what challenges Indian entertainment industry is facing. The answers he gave are very candid, fascinating and revealing. Read them with your eyes wide open 🙂

Mehak:

Why do u think 100 Crore Bollywood club is not cool?

Abhigyan:

We have 121 crore people in this country so accordingly it doesn’t make sense. If a movie is making 100 crores business that means it’s collecting less than Rs 1 per capita which is extremely low. If we take example of US which has 310 million people, and movies there make upto 3-4 dollars per capita, we can see a huge difference. The simple reason for this huge disparity is that most Indians are not watching Bollywood movies and it proves that the content of our movies is getting pathetic. These figures about how much a movie has collected from the success at box office are misleading for a country like India. 3 idiots was the only movie that came close to selling 3 crore tickets in last 30 years. The top 3 Bollywood films by Box Office Gross ever are Mughal-e-Azam, Ganga Jamuna & Sholay and 3 Idiots is at a lousy 36th spot. (as per Box Office Bollywood Gold Standard). Shahrukh Khan’s movies are not even in the top 40. Mr. Bachchan has only 2 movies in top 50 – Sholay and Amar Akbar Anthony and he was not the solo actor in both. Mr. Dilip Kumar comes out as the biggest hero. Most of his films are in the top 20 grossing films. What went wrong was that after 1980 our filmmakers started making really bad movies.

When you call movies like Sholay and Mughal-e-azam, Superhits with collections close to or higher than Rs.1000 Crores, in the same breadth you cannot call movies like Housefull, a hit by any standard. We should not be told how much money, the movie made but instead how many people are actually watching the movie: How many tickets were actually sold.Movies, Television shows and Music in our country are not serving the right content but everybody is in denial mode that nothing is wrong. We are being told numbers which mean nothing: no one can get a sense out of TRP and Box Office Gross that very few people are actually watching even the so called HITS! Nobody will be able to tell you how many viewers are watching a “2.5 TRP rated show” ! Not even the channel people would know except for the strategy and marketing team. The Hindi Speaking market in India is at least 50 crore people out of which only 70 lakhs would be watching a show whose TRPs are 2 or more. In 1992-93, on a Hit series like say Dekh Bhai Dekh: each episode was made between 5.5 or 6 lakhs and unbelievably, the amount spent per episode of a show is the same today as well. After 20 years of inflation & Rupee Devaluation.

Mehak:

So you think the content as whole is degrading? Not just movies?

Abhigyan:

We all remember Altaf Raja? He sold 27 lakh cassettes of his non-movie album near the end of 1990s and today an artist cannot sell even 2 lakhs. People are paying to get Airtel’s own jingle as ringtone but not Hindi Bollywood music. What can you do when everybody is in denial?

The recent show Satyameva Jayate had received a TRP of 3.0. Apparently AmirKhan has spent 30 crores on marketing and 7 crore per episode. They were trying to reach around 12 million people of India by telecasting the show on Doordarshan apart from Star Network. But this is not enough if they got 3 ratings for the show. It is a complete waste.

Let’s take another brilliant example- UK has a population of 60 million people and its number one show is the Music reality show done by ‘Simon Cowell’ which has around 9-10 million viewers. That’s a whopping 17-18% of the population.

Mehak:

Why these days no “real” blockbuster Movie is coming out of industry?

Abhigyan:

They have forgotten how to make a blockbuster and they have given up. It is like ‘Baniya’ game. Just like a small merchant would not like to make it big, similarly the Indian filmmakers never think of scale. They put 20 crores in a film and getting back 100 crores and this is sufficient for them. Nobody has been able to scale as they are satisfied. The filmmakers are looking at small number of people and at a much smaller universe. We don’t have the reach or the ambition to scale. Nobody is attempting to make it big. We don’t want to grow and we look at everything from the wrong side. A question to the filmmakers – Why do u make a film? Is it because you want to make money or you want people to watch your movie by showing them an amazing story and screenplay? If it is just the money then these filmmakers should have chosen the job of bankers, merchants or something else.

Can we even think of putting YashrajProductions in comparison to WaltDisney? Can we compare what SRK does in terms of movies in comparison to Tom Cruise?

This year, IPL connected around 20 crore people in one or the other way. IPL alone is more than half of our Bollywood industry in terms of theatrical revenues. This proves that Bollywood is failing massively at attracting audiences to watch it’s movies.

Mehak:

Has Hollywood movies doing extremely good in India affected Bollywood?

Abhigyan:

No they are not doing extremely good but they have started doing well now. It started from the first Spiderman in India which had made the highest collection by a Hollywood film at the time.

Mehak:

Do you think Hollywood will surpass Bollywood in India in upcoming times? If yes, what lessons Bollywood needs to learn?

Abhigyan:

Yes, it can. Distribution system of Bollywood is to be blamed primarily. These are family based distribution systems that need to be changed.

Mehak:

Is there a hope that this pathetic content being delivered continuously can change?

Abhigyan:

Content can change and it is possible. It might change tomorrow or day after tomorrow. It doesn’t take much time/effort to change.

Vicky Donor was a recent good example. If an average film is like Vicky Donor, in quality then it’s a good sign. Paan Singh Tomar is another example of a movie which was not marketed properly but if it had been marketed like Kahani then it could have done better than Kahani.

So here we are throwing some really open questions to our Movie and TV show makers. What do you think of Indians as an audience?

BREAKINGNEWS!!! What comes to your mind when you hear these two words? These are not just words but Powerful Words because the moment we hear them our eyes, ears & mind are all focused towards “What is it NOW”. Just like a coin has two sides, these two words also have inverse effect. Thanks to our Indian Television News Channels that managed to completely change the sense of these words. Today every other news is a BREAKING NEWS. Be it a “Mika kissing Rakhi Sawant” or Train accident – Both are shown on same platform and with equal importance. So friends, the so called latest BREAKING NEWS is Actor Saif Ali Khan arrested for assault. Even your favorite English Channel is airing it under BREAKING NEWS section.

It was so surprising to see almost all news channels showing this as Breaking News. Reporters were asking the camera man to show the fans who had been waiting to see the star at the police station. The irony was that in current scenario when we have a burning issue about NCTC (National Counter Terrorism Centre) where at least 13 chief ministers voicing concerns over, don’t this powerful media need to focus on the REAL news. Don’t worry, we will not be getting into any political debate, but the point is should Media be selling “What is just another entertainment “or news on burning issues “Which is actually a BREAKING NEWS”.

“Some of you might say that News Channels are doing their Job and just covering the event. Well no one is stopping the media to do their job, but I guess they are smart enough to make a differentiation between a Breaking News and News. Labeling news like this (Actor Saif Ali Khan incident) one as Breaking New- is NOT justified. Won’t you agree that the media is giving too much of footage to such events? No doubt there are loads of News Channels that are covering Serious News and are actually showing the viewers the truth but also there are actually loads of such examples that might make you wonder if they deserve to be titled as Breaking News. Just a Food for thought, there are loads of Entertainment Channels that can telecast this so called Breaking News like ZOOM or UTV Bindas (after all they are full time Bollywood devoted channels).”

This is not the first case where a celebrity has been caught in a legal battle. Who can forget the chain of Sanjay Dutt and Salman Khan Cases that’s been the benchmark of celebrities being caught up on the wrong foot? But the surprising aspect is that such news over powers the real news that is important to the nation. Do you think the news channels should be wise while flashing the word “Breaking News” in their respective channels?? Or do you think they should have the liberty to sell anything and everything as news?

Remember- “Media is one the strongest tool India has which can change Lives which has the power to change Nation”.

As Spiderman once said “With great power comes great responsibility”. Hope the media also understands their responsibility while using their power.